1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method and, more particularly, to information processing apparatuses connected to a network to perform information communications with each other, and a communication method therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A plurality of information processing apparatuses such as personal computers and workstations connected to a network such as a LAN or WAN perform information communications with each other using a protocol such as the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).
In a communication using the TCP/IP, the operating system (OS) of an information processing apparatus opens a file handle corresponding to this communication. The file handle (to be also referred to as a handle hereinafter) is used to refer to a file or device opened by a program. The number of file handles is limited by an OS or the like. For example, the total number of processes (i.e., the total number of openable file handles) in a general OS such as UNIX(R) or Windows NT(R) is 64, which is not sufficiently large.
As described above, the number of openable file handles is limited by the OS, which poses the following problems.
(1) Limitation in simultaneous communications: in constructing systems for performing many-to-many communications, the partners subjected to simultaneous communications are limited to, e.g., 64 systems. PA1 (2) Limitation in maximum process: when a large number of processes are simultaneously operated and the respective processes require communications, each process requires two file handles to perform bidirectional communications. For this reason, only a maximum of 32 processes can be operated simultaneously.
To solve the above problems, the OS itself may be improved. However, in order not to waste resources such as a main memory, the number of openable file handles must have a certain upper limit.